Honestly, I am glad Digimon Fusion failed. The Saban 4kids style of dubbing should stay dead.

Well, the issue is more that 4Kids actually had often good voices. Saban... not so much. Comparing it to 4Kids doesn't really work, since that's not why the company was bad. It was extreme censoring and removing tons of key plot points. They actually had some great voice actors available and could often have excellent theme songs. The background music in the show can vary if it's new or not, though. Some songs are, some aren't.

I’ve heard, as well, that 4kids didn’t really go off the deep end with it until helicopter parents started complaining that too LITTLE was being censored, particularly an issue with Shaman King.

TMNT also didn't help as it got really freaking dark. Enough that one episode couldn't make it in since it was too much. And that's actually not a Japanese show dubbed.

Anyway, while I enjoy the Digimon dubs, and I didn't find any of the voices "bad", Fusion wasn't the most memorable voices(though the characters have enough quirks to make 'em stand out a bit). That said, this might be the first dub after the newer movies that'll be uncensored. Which would be nice.

Whoa, wow wow wow wait! Saban... not having good voices? Their Digimon cast was so good that they most returned for Tri and Kizuna 4Kids has some miserably bad voice acting. I know I know. The actors were badly directed yadda yadda. But that also applies to SABAN. Listen to this for one. And keep in mind I am Latin American and I have no nostalgia for any USA dub.

That scene is my favourite bit from any episode.

Seriously, I am waiting for any proof that 4kids had the overall better actors.

If you can believe it, Saban wasn't nearly as gungho about altering stuff for TV back in the 80s-early 90s as they became in the mid-2010s. Ironically, in their early years, they showed a lot more restraint in regards to editing content. Remember Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics and how it aired on Nick Jr? Grimm had plenty of violence and family unfriendly content despite being aimed at kids, to the point where whole episodes couldn't be aired because they didn't meet American broadcast standards, according to an extra on the second season's Blu-Ray that Discotek Media put out last year. Yet it still got away with plenty of stuff that modern Saban would absolutely censor the hell out of today. I mean, even back in the 90s, Saban didn't make nearly as much cuts as 4Kids did...and then Glitter Force happened and the amount of edits done for that were pretty much on par with 4Kids' worst efforts. Any complaints that shitshow got are totally valid, as Smile Pretty Cure really didn't need to be hacked to pieces like that. It's perfectly fine and wholesome as it is! I agree that the whole practice of Cut And Paste Translation should just die, and you'd think Saban would have taken the hint by now. Maybe it's a good thing Saban finally shut down years later. I haven't seen Digimon Fusion all the way through, so I don't have much opinions on the dub for that other than for the few episodes I've seen.

Edited by TwilightPegasus on Feb 7th 2022 at 4:57:34 AM

You worded your post about it really weirdly. Like you were just outright bashing the 4kids voice actors, despite them being... almost all good. The only actual bad one at best was Tails in Sonic X. The rest did an amazing job, and even Tails was still pretty decent all things considered.

Saban has actually quite a lot(and I wasn't talking simply about anime dubs, but in general). Power Rangers Lost Galaxy has some really bad rangers at times. Kai is a horribly bland and wooden character. The rangers in general weren't that great of actors, though the villains were done very well. Wild Force kept this issue with Cole being a bland voice, and for the most part, only Alyssa and Taylor were decently voiced. The other two core Rangers were just poorly done. Merrick was a bit better, though. Samurai also had some problems, as most of the Rangers bar Antonio weren't done that well. Jayden was especially bland. Megaforce had an even worse Red Ranger, and the other rangers till the Silver weren't that great either. Even Robo Knight was more interesting than Red... and only one's a robot. Disney may have butchered a season or two, but their voice acting was pretty good. That said, usually the villains were good in general bar sometimes a monster of the week.

One Piece is notable in that the voice direction is pretty much the same in every dub, as it's a general style that works. Luffy with the screechy voice, Sanji being suave, Zoro/Zolo being quite serious, etc. They nailed it. I honestly can't even tell the difference between the voices when I continued to watch the Funimation dub right where the 4Kids one left off. They were just that similar.

Saban has good voice actors too, but they'd have some stinkers among the live action stuff.

I forgot about that one. Glitter Force I enjoyed the music, but the voice acting was irritating. And they repeated the same style in Doki Doki. What's worse is that they had great stuff in the past, like Big Bad Beetleborgs. It fit perfectly for how it's entirely for kids. Silly etc.

Yeah, they butcher a lot, but usually the voices tend to be topnotch anyway. Ironically Magical Doremi had much better voices, though wasn't long enough to be as interesting. Both Glitter Forces finished their storylines, at least.

Digimon felt good until Fusion, and once in a while a "what the hell" voice(Magnaangemon's 02 dub voice was... "old man" for no reason).

Edited by Irene on Feb 7th 2022 at 7:06:04 AM

I apologize for the wonky writing in my post. But Power Rangers is hardly proof 4kids is better. And even they (Power Rangers not 4kids) had Bryan Cranston as a monster of the week. Along with their Gatchaman dub.

Also I am sorry if I am being rude but you keep insisting they are good and showing no proof.

EDIT: And this is coming from Someone who LOVES 4kids VA's. I simply dont think they are better than Saban's.

Edited by AegisP on Feb 7th 2022 at 5:35:35 AM

...Power Rangers is heavy proof though? That's one of Saban's most prominent shows, and it's had some very bad acting. Digimon is one if it's usually good voice acting shows(Fusion being the only exception).

As I said, 4Kids' issue was the censoring, not the voicework. Saban didn't censor nearly as much(and got away with a lot more than it should have. The crappy Disney redone MMPR is at worst slightly more censored than what'd you expect if it was actually caught by the censors. They'd probably allow a bit more, or they wouldn't have required all the pointless "light show effects". Those seem to be more for fun, or at least sometimes to help sell the toys). Hell, the only Saban shows to be known for major censoring was Big Bad Beetleborgs(VR Troopers was much darker, the other Metal Heroes dub, though it wasn't "super dark" by any means) and the massively failed Masked Rider(which unfortunately had a canon crossover with Power Rangers). ...Speaking of, the live action TMNT was atrocious(still fun, sure, but baaaaad).

Saban generally can adapt Power Rangers fine among live action, but the acting can often be wooden or have a few bad characters. Monsters rarely deal with this issue beyond a bad script at most. Sometimes they can't adapt a show well(Masked Rider, TMNT), and sometimes they get something a bit more inbetween(Big Bad Beetleborgs, VR Troopers. Neither are "great" shows by any means, but they at least were decent and had reasonable popularity for being fun). It varies.

Besides, I wasn't overall meaning to say Saban had bad acting compared to 4Kids so much as saying as Saban does have its share of stinkers. 4Kids just happens to have less. They both have their own issues with dubbing stuff in different ways. They're very different companies. With 4Kids rarely having actual bad voice actors, it's really pointless to try and using it as a bashing point. Saban only actually had this issue sometimes with Power Rangers and once with Digimon. It's unlikely they'll have any bad voice acting like some of their earlier days(oh, god, Kai. As much as Cole kind of sucks, he could at least emote...).

Edited by Irene on Feb 7th 2022 at 7:47:04 AM

But we are talking dubbing here. Not Live Action. And even if Power Rangers counted its an empty victory to be better than that.

Edited by AegisP on Feb 7th 2022 at 5:48:07 AM

Okay but 4Kids absolutely does have good dubs? Despite the censorship Pokemon and the earlier Yu-Gi-Oh series get a lot of prairse for their voice acting. I've also seen various amounts of praise for the Winx Club dub though that's less consistent. I can't really compare it to Saban since I only watched a few shows from both of them (Primarily Digimon in Saban's case.) but dismissing their dubs is definitely weird.

Edited by Chariot on Feb 7th 2022 at 9:19:33 AM

AH! There! I remembered their Winx Club was good, and early Yu Gi Oh had very good voice acting. But Irene didnt provide any proof. Just "They are better trust me!"

Yeah, I'm still not getting a good point here.

Saban has had some bad voice acting. Quite a lot. With stunt doubles, it's even less about who is fighting and voicing at the same time, and more that some just can't act voice-wise. Power Rangers is there biggest franchise to begin with, more than anything else. Having a lot of bad voices does matter as it shows they don't have a great track record. And Glitter Force is even more horrendous too. It failed hard, which is why they lost the license. And that's not even the only reason it failed. It butchered and overcensored. 4Kids didn't always censor as much(especially Pokemon which is mostly devoid of Japanese references, but still kept a lot of crazy stuff over the years, as well as more dirty jokes than you'd expect, if any at all).

Fusion's dub being really bad hardly helped. Though to be fair, that's probably not why Young Hunters didn't get a dub(the show didn't do well to begin with, so it'd be a risky move). Applimon is another story. Saban dropping the ball hard in the later years(they have for a while now, with some bad Power Rangers seasons until Dino Charge, and somewhat Ninja Steel and Beast Morphers respectively. ...And they aren't in-charge for Dino Fury, I think?) since Fusion may be why they aren't nearly as trusted. They thankfully got the rights for Tri(which to be fair, had its own issues unrelated to dub stuff, but also wasn't aired outside of very specialized channels/online related stuff. It wasn't on regular cable or even regular digital cable. In some cases, it's near impossible to find besides the heavily priced DVD/Blu-Ray). Kizuna too. Dino Charge probably got them in good graces just enough to be allowed to do the dub again, but who knows how 2020 will go. We just recently found out that a voice actor for 2020's dub was let go because... they weren't a new voice, if I understood it correctly? That's not promising. A lot will want nostalgia. Obviously they can't get the original voices in any real case(due to people aging), but they could still use some previous actors for other characters, etc.

So while I want to see the dub, I have doubts it'll be anywhere near as good as the original acting or charm of 01's dub. Of course, I don't expect the old Digivolution theme either, but that's more due to licensing anyway. It was kind of sucky for Tri for some, and some preferred Braveheart too. Albeit, the issue is that Tri only really was nostalgia for the Japanese audience overall. They made no real attempt to make it appealing to dub fans. At best, the voices were, well, fairly accurate to the originals. That's... kind of it.

Point taken. Let's indeed agree to disagree and stop here.

EDIT: I do love 4kids because they kept Saturday Morning Cartoons. And their voice actors ARE TERRIFIC. I just dont agree that they are better than Saban's.

EDIT 2: I still love the episode where Kaiba threatens to commit suicide if Yugi beats him. 4kids was really clever in allowing it but in more kid friendly way. Every actor did give their all on that episode.

Edited by AegisP on Feb 7th 2022 at 6:14:51 AM

Okay.

Anyway, there's a lot of Digimon with all new appearances, like Golddramon. Makes me wonder if his voice will be akin to Seraphimon's "holy heroic voice" or not. They have a lot of styles for most of the Digimon shown, though there's a ton of new Digimon as is. Devimon's two evolutions are unknown.

It'll be cool to hear Mega Digivolve again. But I do wonder if they'll do something unique with Super Evolution, as they usually had something special to go along with it too. Data Squad had regular Warp Digivolve(or just Digivolve to, but note the Warp part making it special), the "Digivolve to Ultimate" tune in 01 and 02, Matrix Digivolve for Tamers. Besides that, the Crests are... treated way more oddly? They were clearly handled well in 01, as they had characterization associated with it, but 2020 kind of rushes through fights so a lot of them feel very badly paced(and not just cause it's a common complaint, but because they have to focus on a lot of characters). The lack of general filler episodes(or ones that aren't mainly about fighting the main antagonist) doesn't leave much overall. There's a tiny few, but they're also laser-focused on specific characters. It sounds like characterization could suffer again.

It would be great if a few more animation scenes were added to other evolutions, though. A lot are too fast as is. I doubt they'll do anything new, though.

Correction: Saban didn't have any involvement with the dubbing for Tri or Last Evolution, Shout Factory got the license for those films with Studiopolis (Where the previous Digimon series were recorded at) handling the dubs.

I'm going to throw my hat in the ring on my thoughts for the Digimon Adventure 2020 dub. I feel that from the get go that the people they get to voice the Digidestined and their partners have some shoes to fill but that's an obvious given. Personally, I think it'd be neat if Xander Mobus got to voice Agumon. I liked his performance as the little dinosaur in the Pokemon vs Digimon episode, even if it wasn't perfect.

I'm guessing that since Toei wants an all new cast, we also won't get Cherami Leigh or Robbie Daymond reprising their respective roles as Biyomon or Joe in Tri.

As for where the dub could air, it could go to streaming, possibly on Crunchyroll. Though if for some reason they don't go with streaming, were it not for the possibility that it'll just be dumped in the mornings, I think that Cartoon Network would be fitting place for a dub of Adventure 2020 and possibly Ghost Game should Adventure 2020's dub do well enough to warrant Ghost Game being dubbed.

I talked about the idea on the CN thread in Western Animation but Cartoon Network has aired shows with TV-PG ratings like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Teen Titans Go, Uncle Grandpa, and more recently, Mao Mao and Tig and Seek. So I think the Adventure 2020 dub could air with relatively as few edits as possible since they could aim for the TV-PG rating. The only problem is that Cartoon Network would just dump the show on weekend mornings since it's not Teen Titans Go but who knows, maybe the dub is aiming for Cartoon Network and it'll end up overtaking Teen Titans Go in popularity.

Edited by MisterZygarde64 on Feb 7th 2022 at 6:58:45 AM

Oh, my bad. I thought Saban was fully in charge of that too.

Ghost Game Episode Plot Synopsis', along with the hinting of plot.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Feb 8th 2022 at 12:56:56 PM

Could you spoiler that? While I'm personally all for reading the summaries not everyone is and it's not fair to spoil things for those who'd rather be surprised.

@DevilSketch36 Really late on replying but I personally felt that hearing Zach’s voice come out of Angoramon felt fitting for some reason. A guy I talked to on Discord suggested Xander Mobus could work as well for a possible dub voice of Angoramon.

So a while back, Rebel suggested the idea of Mika, Aoi, and Nomura being the Juri, Hirokazu, and Kenta of the series, where they join the main trio later.

Giving my own thoughts on the idea, I think it’d be neat if in the event that they do join and get their own partners, that said partners would be or evolve into Digimon that were previously antagonistic in previous series/media. Like for example,

• Nomura ends up with a Tsukaimon for a partner that evolves into Pipismon and later Myotismon who’d later become a new Digimon that’s a combination of the Alucards from Castlevania and Hellsing.

• Mika having her partner get LordKnightmon/Crusadermon for a Mega form.

• Aoi getting a Betamon that’d evolve into the Seadramon line.

Edited by MisterZygarde64 on Feb 12th 2022 at 4:52:02 AM

Seadramon itself was a partner Digimon once, but I don't think its higher evolutions has been one of the heroes' partner so far. At least in the anime.

Episode 18: And now Digimon without partners are evolving on their own. Funny that that happens when the villain of the week specifically doesn’t like evolutions.

And this reminds me of how much I dislike the cosplay-mon designs

Edited by fillerdude on Feb 12th 2022 at 8:26:23 AM